Shubhendra
Case Western Reserve University - Weatherhead School of Management
Chris Laszlo
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Banyan Nation is a recycling venture from India started in the year 2013. It is a technology-driven plastic recycling venture which is working towards creating a circular production economy. Banyan does this by eliminating inefficiencies in India’s recycling industry by innovating across the chain, from the initial process of recovery to final process of recycling. I would like to thank Miss Rashi Agrawal, Director Partnerships, for the information provided by her for my story.
Banyan Nation is India’s first vertically integrated plastics recycling company that uses data intelligence to integrate a largely informal supply chain, and proprietary plastics cleaning technology to produce Better Plastic – near virgin quality recycled granules that brands can use to make new products and packaging. Banyan’s mobile and cloud-based technology platform integrate the informal sector last mile collectors who collect over 70% of India’s plastics. Banyan’s IoT based Smart Waste management platform senses, aggregates, and analyses data to help cities make waste management more effective and economical. Banyan Nation's plastics cleaning technology uses technological advancements to remove dirt, remnant products, inks, paints, and adhesives from plastics to restore it to the quality that rivals the quality of virgin plastic.
Mani Vajipey and Raj Madangopal started Banyan Nation in 2013 with the mission solve India’s looming waste management crisis, which deeply affects the quality of life and progress in the country. They wanted to use simple technological interventions to make waste management and recycling more efficient and effective while reducing the financial burden on municipalities.
Banyan wants to change the way India recycles and views plastics, and manages its waste. While India collects over 70% of it recyclable plastics today, the country does not benefit from high recovery rates because most of the plastics are down-cycled or contaminated, accelerating their ultimate journey to landfills. Moreover, the un-scientific recycling methods employed by the informal sector recyclers in India often harm the people and the environment they come in contact with. At the same time, reputed brands in India do not use recycled plastics in their products and packaging because of lack of availability of high-quality recycled plastics at reliable price, quantity, and quality. Banyan is looking to change this system by formalizing a largely informal value chain and manufacturing high-quality recycled plastics that reputable brands can use in their products and packaging.
Banyan is working with some of the largest brands in the auto, FMCG, food & beverage, consumer goods, and furniture brands in India. These reputed companies choose to work with Banyan because of their superior product, traceable supply chains, and reliable service and support. Banyan’s Better PlasticTM is not only better for the environment and people, but also comparable to virgin plastics in performance and quality. In the long run, companies stand to reduce their production cost by replacing virgin plastic use with recycled because recycled plastics are 10-20% cheaper than virgin plastics.
Banyan arrests used plastic products and packaging from leaking to waste value chains at an early stage, and recycles them into a high-quality, contaminant-free raw material that can be used multiple times in product lifecycles instead of virgin plastics. On one end, this improves landfill diversion rates of plastics, and on the other, it slows down the rate of natural resource depletion for virgin plastics. Each pound of virgin plastic replaced by recycled plastics saves 2.5 pounds of CO2 emissions. Banyan has so far recycled over 7 million pounds of plastics. Banyan has also integrated over 2000 informal sector waste workers into its product value chains.
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Rashi Agrawal, Appreciative Inquiry Interview